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"Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

-- Barry Goldwater

News and Opinion

Violent Extremists Took Over The US Capitol Long Before January 6

No longer content with absurd claims that the January 6 Capitol riot was as bad as the 9/11 attacks, Democratic Party-aligned pundits are now insisting that it was in fact worse.

On a recent appearance with MSNBC’s ReidOut with Joy Reid, former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd said he felt the Capitol riot was “much worse” than 9/11 and that this is the “most perilous point in time” since the beginning of the American Civil War.

“To me, though there was less loss of life on January 6, January 6 was worse than 9/11, because it’s continued to rip our country apart and get permission for people to pursue autocratic means, and so I think we’re in a much worse place than we’ve been,” Dowd said. “I think we’re in the most perilous point in time since 1861 in the advent of the Civil War.”

“I do too,” Reid said.

Not to be outdone, Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Smith cited Dowd’s hysterical claim but adding that not only was January 6 worse than 9/11, but it was actually going to kill more Americans somehow, even counting all those killed in the US wars which ensued from the 9/11 attacks.

“He couldn’t be more right,” Schmidt said at a town hall for the Lincoln Project. “The 1/6 attack for the future of the country was a profoundly more dangerous event than the 9/11 attacks. And in the end, the 1/6 attacks are likely to kill a lot more Americans than were killed in the 9/11 attacks, which will include the casualties of the wars that lasted 20 years following.”

A total of 2,996 Americans were killed in the 9/11 attacks, and a further seven thousand US troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Exactly one person was killed in the January 6 riot, and it was a rioter shot by police inside the Capitol Building. Early reports that rioters had beaten a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher turned out to have been false.

These bizarre alternate-reality takes are awful for a whole host of reasons, including the fact that this so-called “insurrection” everyone is still shrieking about never at any point in its planning or enactment had a higher than zero percent chance of overthrowing the most powerful government in the world, and the fact that they are manufacturing consent for new authoritarian measures just like 9/11 did.

But perhaps the most annoying thing about all the melodramatic garment-rending over how close the US Capitol came to being taken over by violent extremists is that the US Capitol has been under the control of violent extremists for a very long time already.

For all the fretting everyone has been doing about fascists and white supremacist groups, those are not the violent extremists posing the greatest threat and amassing the highest body count today. Neither are the communists. Neither are the anarchists. Neither are the radicalized Muslims, nor the fundamentalist Christians, nor the environmentalists, nor the incels. No, the most dangerous and deadly group of violent extremists in our day are adherents of the mainstream status quo politics of the US-centralized power alliance.

And it’s not even close. Certainly many of the groups listed above are dangerous and undesirable, but they’re not the ones raining explosives upon families around the world for power and profit. They’re not the ones brandishing nuclear weapons with steadily increasing recklessness as they ramp up a new cold war against Russia and China. They’re not the ones poisoning the air and the water and rapidly destroying the environment we all depend on for survival. They’re not the ones enslaving humanity to a brutal, oppressive and exploitative global capitalist system which leaves far too many toiling for far too little when there’s plenty for everyone.

That would be the so-called “moderates” of the western empire, who in reality are anything but.

It is violent to wage nonstop campaigns of military mass murder and impose civilian-killing economic sanctions on nations which disobey your dictates. It is extremist to brutalize, brainwash and enslave humanity while continuously shoving the world in the direction of extinction and armageddon in the name of profit and unipolar hegemony. Because US officials sit almost entirely on the right side of the global political spectrum, we can accurately say that everyone is fretting about violent right-wing extremists storming a Capitol building that had already long been occupied by violent right-wing extremists.

And yet when Facebook started sending Americans warnings that they may have viewed “extremist content” scrolling through their feeds, posts supporting this most dangerous group of extremists were not the content they were being warned about, but any kind of content which opposes the status quo those extremists have created. They’re killing the ecosystem and murdering people every single day while imperiling us all with the risk of nuclear war, my social media feeds are full of Americans literally trying to crowdfund their own survival while the world’s worst add trillions to their wealth, but it’s the people who want to change this abusive system who are the dangerous extremists.

Some analysts focus primarily on criticizing the really obvious monsters who spout racist and bigoted rhetoric to advance their toxic agendas. Others focus more on criticizing the monsters that are harder to see through the fog of feigned politeness and propaganda distortion, the ones you see in government buildings and on Fortune Magazine covers and on TV news shows telling you what to think about the world. Those who spend their time criticizing the latter more than the former are often attacked and ridiculed as fascist sympathizers and Kremlin assets, but only by those who don’t actually see the monsters that they are pointing to.

Hollywood trained us to fear psychopathic killers prowling around in the dark so we won’t notice the psychopathic killers who rule our world in broad daylight. We’ve been trained to fear the serial killer covered in blood and wielding a chainsaw so we won’t notice the serial killer wearing a suit and wielding a pen.

Our collective maturity cannot begin until we learn to see the violent extremist monsters where they actually exist, and not just where we’ve been trained to look for them.

Stella Morris blasts US bid to save Assange persecution as case collapses

‘We expect them to act’: Biden presses Putin on ransomware groups, hints at retaliation

Joe Biden has increased pressure on Vladimir Putin to move against ransomware groups operating from Russia, warning the United States is prepared to respond if cyberhacks are not stopped. The two leaders held an hour-long phone call on Friday, their first since they discussed ransomware attacks at a summit in Geneva on 16 June. Biden’s message to Putin in the call was direct, suggesting a growing impatience over attacks that have disrupted key US sectors.

“I made it very clear to him that the United States expects, when a ransomware operation is coming from his soil even though it’s not sponsored by the state, we expect them to act if we give them enough information to act on who that is,” Biden told reporters. He said the two governments have now set up a means to communicate on a regular basis “when each of us thinks something is happening in another country that affects the home country”.

“And so it went well. I’m optimistic,” he said.

The United States has not indicated how it plans to respond to the attacks emanating from Russia, but Biden hinted at digital retaliation if Russian cooperation was not forthcoming.

South Africa violence spreads after jailing of Jacob Zuma

Shops were looted overnight and a section of the M2 highway was closed in Johannesburg on Sunday as violence following the jailing of the former South African president Jacob Zuma spread to the country’s main economic hub.

Violence had mainly been concentrated in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), where on Wednesday night he began a 15-month sentence for contempt of court.

Top rightwing Brazil newspaper demands removal of Bolsonaro

One of Brazil’s leading conservative newspapers has demanded the removal of the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, as public outrage over his coronavirus response and corruption dragged the rightwing populist’s ratings to their lowest ever level. “Jair Bolsonaro is no longer in a position to remain in the presidency,” O Estado de São Paulo declared on Sunday as polls showed that for the first time a majority of citizens backed impeachment and considered their leader incapable of governing. ...

The anger appears to have spread across Brazil’s electorate in recent weeks, largely thanks to an unfolding scandal over allegedly corrupt Covid vaccine deals and Bolsonaro’s handling of the country’s Covid-19 outbreak, which has killed more than 530,000 people. “This is Jair Bolsonaro’s worst moment. He’s melting and the idea people have of him is melting,” said Eliane Cantanhêde, a political columnist for O Estado de S Paulo, who said a congressional inquiry had laid bare the president’s “crass and preposterous” pandemic response.

Another major newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, said on Saturday that Bolsonaro, who has faced a wave of recent protests, was suffering “a full-scale image meltdown”. The newspaper’s polling division, Datafolha, said 54% of Brazilians thought he should be impeached, up from 49% in May, and 63% believed him incapable of governing, up from 58%. Most voters considered their president “dishonest, insincere, incompetent, unprepared, indecisive, authoritarian and dim”, Folha said.

Perhaps most worrying for Bolsonaro was the finding that 59% of voters would not back him under any circumstances in next year’s election, when he hopes to secure a second four-year term. Datafolha’s poll suggests the leftwing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would trounce Bolsonaro in the 2022 race, with a 20-point gap between the two.

Let the People Decide: Former Haitian Gov’t Minister on Political Chaos After President Assassinated

Haiti crisis deepens as alleged hitman’s sister vows to clear his name

The sister of one of the alleged Colombian hitmen accused of assassinating Haiti’s president has insisted he is innocent and vowed to clear her dead brother’s name, as a potentially destabilising power struggle gripped the Caribbean country. Duberney Capador, a retired member of Colombia’s special forces, was one of two Colombians reportedly killed by Haitian security forces last week after the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince. More than a dozen citizens of the South American country have so far been arrested, as well as two Haitian Americans.

Haitian authorities claim Capador was part of a 28-member hit squad that stormed Moïse’s presidential compound in the early hours of last Wednesday before shooting him dead – a sensational narrative now coming under increasing scrutiny, both in Haiti and overseas.

Capador’s sister told journalists her 40-year-old brother was not a paid assassin but had travelled to Port-au-Prince after being hired by a private security firm to help protect “important people”. “He’s no mercenary, he’s a good man,” Jenny Capador said in an interview with the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.

Capador said she had exchanged messages with her brother in the hours after Moïse’s murder, which supposedly took place at around 1am on Wednesday. She said he had told her his team “had arrived too late to protect the person they were supposed to be protecting”. “I guess it was the president,” she speculated, adding that her brother had told her his group had subsequently been surrounded by police. Speaking to CNN Capador added: “He told me they were in a house, under siege and under fire, fighting … I’m 100% sure of the innocence of my brother and his comrades.” ...

A report in the Colombian magazine Semana, citing an anonymous source, suggested the former Colombian soldiers had gone to Haiti after being hired to protect Moïse, who had reputedly been receiving death threats, not murder him. Semana published extracts from a WhatsApp message sent by one of the jailed Colombians – a former army sergeant called Ángel Mario Yarce – in which he told his wife their job was to provide close protection to high-profile dignitaries. In Haiti, questions have been raised over the role of Moïse’s personal bodyguards – none of whom were reportedly injured in the alleged raid on his hillside mansion.

Krystal Ball: SHOCKING Details Suggest Haiti Assassination Plot Hatched In US

Haitian leader’s widow blames political enemies as power struggle intensifies

The widow of the murdered Haitian president Jovenel Moïse has accused shadowy enemies of organising his assassination to stop democratic change, as a struggle for power intensified in the Caribbean country. ... Martine Moïse, who was wounded in the attack, said her husband was targeted for political reasons.

“You know who the president was fighting against,” a voice recording posted on her Twitter page said, without naming anybody. “They sent mercenaries to kill the president at his home with members of his family because of roads, water, electricity and referendum as well as elections at the end of the year so that there is no transition in the country.

“In the blink of an eye, the mercenaries entered my house and riddled my husband with bullets,” Moïse said in the recording, describing the moment the attackers killed her husband. “This act has no name because you have to be a limitless criminal to assassinate a president like Jovenel Moïse, without even giving him the chance to say a single word.”

Haitian authorities said foreign, trained assassins comprising 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans carried out the assassination. Colombian media suggested the Colombians may have been hired as security for the president. But fresh questions have been raised over Haiti’s official narrative for the assassination, as uncertainty gripped the Caribbean country and the streets of the capital remained eerily quiet amid fears Haiti is lurching into a new phase of political and social upheaval.

The late president, who spoke of dark forces at play behind years of unrest – rival politicians and oligarchs angry about his attempts to clean up government contracts and politics – had proposed a referendum to change Haiti’s constitution. The referendum, scheduled for 26 September along with presidential and legislative elections, could abolish the prime minister’s position, reshape the legislative branch and strengthen the presidency.

No U.S. Troops in Haiti: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says Military Mission Would Not Help Country

Fauci says no immediate need for Covid booster for fully vaccinated Americans

Dr Anthony Fauci has said there is no immediate need for a Covid-19 booster for fully vaccinated Americans but remained open to the possibility in the future, as reports suggest that one major pharmaceutical company plans to lobby government officials to approve booster shots next week.

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced last week that it had observed that its vaccine, while effective against the virus, had “a decline in efficacy against symptomatic disease over time”. The company suggested that as new variants continue to emerge a booster shot after six months “may be beneficial”.

The announcement prompted a rare joint statement from the US Food and Drug Administration [FDA] and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], stating that fully vaccinated Americans did not requite a booster. Appearing on CNN on Sunday Fauci, president Biden’s chief medical adviser, reiterated the CDC and FDA’s advice but acknowledged the guidance may change in the future.

“This isn’t something we say ‘no we don’t need a boost right now the story has ended forever’. There’s a lot of work going on to examine this in real time to see if we might need a boost,” Fauci said. “But right now, given the data that the CDC and the FDA has, they don’t feel that we have to tell people right now you need to be boosted.”

Reports over the weekend indicated that Pfizer will brief US health officials next week over the need for a third booster shot. The reporting, published in the Washington Post, came as Israel announced it would offer a third booster shot to adults with weak immune systems but was still weighing whether to rollout boosters to the general population.

My time in Taiwan shows the virus will exploit any hint of complacency

For much of this year, I’ve lived a mostly Covid-free life. Taiwan wasn’t just lucky. It had been traumatised by Sars, which it didn’t handle well, and established comprehensive epidemic plans for the next time. There was no talk of herd immunity or accepting mass deaths as inevitable. As far as Taiwan was concerned, Covid-19 wasn’t getting in, and if it tried they were ready. Taiwan took full advantage of being an island to quarantine itself from the world. It funnelled entrants through a tightly controlled system defined by extreme caution. ...

In November, Taiwan clocked up 220 days without a single community case. Before flu season it extended mandatory mask-wearing and I wondered if they were also trying to eliminate the common cold and smiling. Days before Christmas, a sick cargo pilot lied about his symptoms and contacts, and infected a friend in Taipei. The Covid-free counter was reset to zero after 253 days. Miraculously it didn’t spread. Another outbreak at a hospital in January infected about 20, but again it was contained.

Four months flew by, and an outbreak linked to reduced quarantine requirements for airline staff made headlines but didn’t alarm – surely, this one would be contained too. But then cases appeared two counties over, and then in a densely populated district of Taipei, then across the island. Taiwan went into a soft lockdown, but the early rules were unclear, and it was the first sense things might not run so smoothly this time. I’m lucky – I’m healthy and had a job I do from home. Interviewing health experts, a worrying picture formed: authorities had grown comfortable and weren’t ready for an outbreak of a faster moving strain. It felt scary and frustrating when there was a world of examples to have learned from. ...

There are plenty of places to look for a dose of perspective. Taiwan made mistakes, but our tragic deaths are in the hundreds, not hundreds of thousands. To live here has been a blessing, but one tempered by what is happening elsewhere.

CDC advises US schools to reopen for in-person learning in the fall

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released revised guidelines on Friday that say schools across the US should reopen for in-person learning regardless of whether they can implement all the recommended Covid-19 mitigation efforts.

The revised recommendations mark the first time the CDC has taken a stance on reopening schools, which became a subject of contentious debate over the course of the pandemic. Previous recommendations included measures schools should undertake to curb the spread of the virus, but did not emphasize reopening in-person. ...

By the end of this past school year, a slight majority of schools – 53% – had fully reopened for in-person instruction, while 46% of schools did a combination of virtual and in-person learning, according to the Center for American Progress. The remaining 1% of schools were fully online. Schools that had a majority non-white student population were slightly less likely to be fully reopened.

In the revised guidelines, the CDC says that schools “provide safe and supportive learning environments for students that support emotional development, provide access to critical services and improve life outcomes”. It also says that schools are key employers and allow parents and guardians to go to work. The CDC cited data that has shown reopening schools did not increase Covid-19 transmission rates when multiple mitigation measures were taken. Transmission rates in schools were either lower than or similar to broader community transmission levels.

Krystal and Saagar: Rent SKYROCKETS As Private Equity Giants Move In

Biden Fires Trump's Social Security Boss Who Refused to Resign

President Biden on Friday fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, after Saul refused a request to resign.

Saul's deputy, David Black, who was also appointed by former president Donald Trump, resigned Friday upon request.

Saul, 74, a wealthy businessman who owned the now-bankrupt women’s apparel company Caché, is a major Republican donor and Trump supporter.

House Democrats and progressive activists have been calling on President Biden to fire Saul for months, accusing Saul of slow-walking the Biden administration's effort to distribute direct coronavirus relief payments to tens of millions of seniors and people with disabilities.

Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works said:

“Today is a great day for every current and future Social Security beneficiary.

Andrew Saul and David Black were appointed by former President Donald Trump to undermine Social Security. They’ve done their very best to carry out that despicable mission. That includes waging a war on people with disabilities, demoralizing the agency’s workforce, and delaying President Biden’s stimulus checks.

Biden named Kilolo Kijakazi, the current deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy, to serve as acting commissioner until a permanent nominee is selected.

The White House said:

“Since taking office, Commissioner Saul has undermined and politicized Social Security disability benefits, terminated the agency’s telework policy that was utilized by up to 25 percent of the agency’s workforce, not repaired SSA’s relationships with relevant Federal employee unions including in the context of COVID-19 workplace safety planning, reduced due process protections for benefits appeals hearings, and taken other actions that run contrary to the mission of the agency and the President’s policy agenda."

Saul told the Washington Post Friday afternoon that he would not leave his post, challenging the legality of the White House move to oust him. “I consider myself the term-protected Commissioner of Social Security,” he said, adding that he plans to be back at work on Monday morning. He called his ouster a “Friday Night Massacre.”

Utah woman charged with “hate crime” for allegedly stomping on, throwing away pro-police sign

In an unconstitutional attack on the First Amendment and the right to protest, a 19-year-old Utah woman is being charged with a hate crime after allegedly crumpling up and throwing away a “Back the Blue” pro-police sign in front of a cop.

The Salt Lake Tribune first reported on an affidavit of probable cause submitted by an unnamed Garfield County police officer against the unidentified woman, who was charged last Friday. Local media reports confirm she is officially being charged with criminal mischief with a “hate crime” enhancement and disorderly conduct. The Class A misdemeanor criminal mischief charge is punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

The alleged incident took place last Wednesday at a gas station in the sparsely populated mountain town of Panguitch in south-central Utah. According to the affidavit, the woman threw away the “Back the Blue” sign in front of the police after they had ticketed her friend for speeding. “I observed one of the friends … stomping on a ‘Back the Blue’ sign next to where the traffic stop was conducted, crumple it up in a destructive manner and throw it into a trash can all while smirking in an intimidating manner towards me,” wrote the aggrieved deputy in the affidavit. ...

After witnessing the “intimidating” act of a young woman throwing away a cardboard sign, the officer, equipped with a service pistol, a bevy of “less-lethal” options and the courts, decided to leave his vehicle to confront and question the woman about where she got the disposed of sign. “I stated to [the woman] that our sheriff’s office produced those specific signs and that I believed she had acquired it in our community,” the cop wrote. The deputy noted in his affidavit that he checked with gas station workers who confirmed it was not their sign.

After being unable to determine where the woman acquired the pro-police sign, the cop proceeded to further question her, writing in his affidavit that she allegedly provided “inconsistent stories” before stating she found it on the ground. “Due to [the woman] destroying property that did not belong to her in a manner to attempt to intimidate law enforcement, I placed her under arrest,” the deputy wrote, adding that she was taken and booked into jail. “Due to the demeanor displayed by [the woman] in attempts to intimidate law enforcement while destroying a ‘Pro Law Enforcement’ sign, the allegations are being treated as a hate crime enhanced allegation.”

Robert E. Lee chose to wage war against America & helped kill 600K soldiers for his twisted vision of advancing slavery of Black people.

Today—156 years after his surrender—his statue has been removed from the Charlottesville public square

Good riddancepic.twitter.com/ZZHOxEvzZA

— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) July 10, 2021

Charlottesville removes Confederate statues that helped spark deadly rally

The statue of a Confederate general that helped spark a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017 was removed on Saturday after a long legal battle.

The small Virginia city said the equestrian statue of Gen Robert E Lee and a nearby statue of Gen Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson would be removed to storage. Designated public viewing areas for the removals had been established and a small crowd of onlookers cheered as the statue of Lee was hoisted away first, lifted by crane from its stone pedestal and taken away on a flat-bed truck.

Charlottesville’s mayor, Nikuyah Walker, gave a speech in front of public and media as the crane with lifting equipment was moved into position in the early morning. “Taking down this statue is one small step closer to the goal of helping Charlottesville, Virginia, and America grapple with the sin of being willing to destroy Black people for economic gain,” she said.

The Jackson statue was erected in 1921 and Lee in 1924, nearly 60 years after the war ended in the total defeat of the Confederacy but was followed an era of official racial segregation across southern states. ...

Because of litigation and changes to a state law, the city was unable to act before holding public hearings and offering the statue to any museum, historical society or battlefield. This week, the city said it had received 10 such expressions of interest, “six out-of-state and four in-state that are all under review”.

Texas Republicans advance voting restrictions at special session after Democrat walkout

Hailee Mouch woke up at 2am Saturday morning so she could drive to her state’s capital city of Austin and testify at two competing public hearings on Texas’s restrictive voting bills. ... Mouch was among the crowd who flocked to the state capitol on Saturday, when committees in the state House and Senate held overlapping hearings on highly controversial voting legislation during their rapid-fire special session.

Public testimony for the House committee didn’t start until around 2am Sunday, but lawmakers still advanced their restrictive voting bill on Sunday morning – roughly 24 hours after the hearing began. State senators also voted in favor of their sweeping proposal Sunday afternoon, teeing up full chamber votes in coming days. The legislators’ overnight moves paralleled actions during the regular session, when lawmakers advanced elections bills while most Texans were sleeping.

Texas governor Greg Abbott convened the special session – effectively legislative overtime for no more than 30 days – starting 8 July, after Democrats killed a restrictive voting bill during the regular session with a historic walkout from the House floor.

“We feel like our ‘electeds’ are really trying to beat us down and trying to run out that, like, that urgency that we have and that commitment that we have,” said Lexy Garcia, a regional field coordinator for Texas Rising and Texas Freedom Network about the battle against voting restrictions. ...

Texas is one of the country’s most bitter battlegrounds for voting rights, with a deeply divided electorate and a reputation as the hardest place to cast a ballot nationwide. Now, Republicans are endorsing provisions that would ban 24-hour and drive-thru voting, expose public officials to state felonies for soliciting or distributing unrequested vote-by-mail applications, empower partisan poll watchers and otherwise significantly rollback voter access. Voting rights advocates warned for months that those changes could disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color and people with disabilities, a concern Republican lawmakers in Saturday’s Senate hearing shrugged off.

Nancy Pelosi’s Insider Trading!

Rapidly Thawing Permafrost Threatens Trans-Alaska Pipeline

Alaska's thawing permafrost is undermining the supports that hold up an elevated section of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, putting in danger the structural integrity of one of the world’s largest oil pipelines.

In a worst-case scenario, a rupture of the pipeline would result in an oil spill in a delicate and remote landscape where it would be extremely difficult to clean up.

“This is a wake-up call,” said Carl Weimer, of Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit pipeline watchdog group based in Bellingham, Washington. “The implications of this speak to the pipeline’s integrity and the effect climate change is having on pipeline safety in general.”

A slope where an 810-foot long section of the pipeline is secured has started to slip due to the melting permafrost, in turn, causing the braces holding this section of the pipeline to twist and bend.

According to NBC News, the pipeline supports have been damaged by “slope creep” caused by thawing permafrost, records, and interviews with officials involved with managing the pipeline show.

To combat the problem, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources has approved the use of about 100 thermosyphons — tubes that suck heat out of the permafrost – to keep the frozen slope in place and prevent further damage to the pipeline’s support structure.

“The proposed project is integral to the protection of the pipeline,” according to the department’s November 2020 analysis.

There is some concern in using these cooling tubes – They have never been used as a defensive safeguard once a slope has begun to slide, and the permafrost is already thawing.

The Arctic and Alaska are heating twice as fast as the rest of the globe because of global warming. And global warming is driving the thawing of permafrost that the oil industry must keep frozen to maintain the infrastructure that allows it to extract more of the fossil fuels that cause the warming.

Permafrost is ground that has remained completely frozen for at least two years straight and is found beneath nearly 85 percent of Alaska. In the last few decades, permafrost temperatures there have warmed as much as 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

The state’s average temperature is projected to increase 2 to 4 degrees more by the middle of the century, and a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change projects that with every 2-degree increase in temperature, 1.5 million square miles of permafrost could be lost to thawing. ...

The Trans-Alaska system was completed in 1977. The 48-inch diameter steel pipeline runs for 800 miles, carrying "hot oil" from America's largest oil reserve in Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez. The pipeline is either buried underground or lifted above the surface in an attempt to prevent the permafrost from melting.

Oxfam Report Shows 11 People Are Dying of Hunger Every Minute—Outpacing Covid Fatalities

As many as 11 people around the world are dying of hunger and malnutrition every minute—outpacing Covid-19 deaths—according to a report published Friday by the international charity Oxfam.

The report (pdf), entitled The Hunger Virus Multiplies: Deadly Recipe of Conflict, Covid-19, and Climate Accelerate World Hunger, says that a year-and-a-half into the coronavirus pandemic, "deaths from hunger are outpacing" those from the virus.

"Ongoing conflict, combined with the economic disruptions of the pandemic and an escalating climate crisis, has deepened poverty and catastrophic food insecurity in the world's hunger hot spots and established strongholds in new epicenters of hunger," it states.

The report continues:

Conflict was the single-largest driver of hunger since the pandemic began, the primary factor pushing nearly 100 million people in 23 conflict-torn countries to crisis or worse levels of food insecurity. Despite calls for a global cease-fire to allow the world to focus its attention on battling the pandemic, conflict has gone largely unabated.

Even as governments had to find massive new resource flows to fight the coronavirus, global military spending rose by 2.7% last year—the equivalent of $51 billion—enough to cover the $7.9 billion 2021 U.N. humanitarian food security appeal six-and-a-half times over. Arms sales spiraled in some of the most conflict-torn countries battered by hunger. For instance, Mali increased its arms purchases by 669% since violence escalated in 2012.

Overall, around 155 million people in 55 countries are facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, the report states. Some of the nations hardest-hit by hunger include Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan, and Yemen. More than half a million people in these countries are facing famine-like conditions—an increase of 500% since the pandemic began.

The climate emergency "was the third significant driver of global hunger this year," the report states. "Nearly 400 weather-related disasters, including record-breaking storms and flooding, continued to intensify for millions across Central America, Southeast Asia, and the Horn of Africa, where communities were already battered by the effects of conflict and Covid-19-related poverty."

"Meanwhile, the rich continued to get richer during the pandemic," the paper notes. "The wealth of the 10 richest people (nine of whom are men) increased by $413 billion last year—enough to cover the entire U.N. humanitarian appeal for 2021 more than 11 times over."

The report is referring to the world body's December 2020 appeal for $35 billion to meet humanitarian needs around the world in 2021.

Oxfam executive director Gabriela Bucher said in a statement that "informal workers, women, displaced people, and other marginalized groups are hit hardest by conflict and hunger. Women and girls are especially affected, too often eating last and eating least. They face impossible choices, like having to choose between traveling to the market and risking getting physically or sexually assaulted, or watching their families go hungry."

"Governments must stop conflict from continuing to fuel catastrophic hunger and instead ensure aid agencies reach those in need," Bucher continued. "Donor governments must immediately and fully fund the U.N.'s humanitarian appeal to help save lives now. Security Council members must also hold to account all those who use hunger as a weapon of war."

"To prevent unnecessary deaths and millions more people being pushed to extreme poverty and hunger, governments must stop this deadly disease; a People's Vaccine has never been more urgent," she added. "They must simultaneously build fairer and more sustainable food systems and support social protection programs."

Firefighters struggle to contain exploding northern California wildfire

Firefighters struggled to contain an exploding northern California wildfire under blazing temperatures as another heatwave blanketed the west, prompting an excessive heat warning for inland and desert areas. Death Valley in south-eastern California’s Mojave Desert reached 128 F (53C) on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service’s reading at Furnace creek. The shockingly high temperature was actually lower than the previous day, when the location reached 130F (54C).

If confirmed as accurate, the 130-degree reading would be the hottest high recorded there since July 1913, when Furnace Creek desert hit 134F (57C), considered the highest measured temperature on Earth.

About 300 miles (483km) north-west of the sizzling desert, the largest wildfire of the year in California was raging along the border with Nevada. The Beckwourth Complex Fire – a combination of two lightning-caused fires burning 45 miles (72km) north of Lake Tahoe – showed no sign of slowing its rush north-east from the Sierra Nevada forest region after doubling in size between Friday and Saturday.

Late Saturday, flames jumped Interstate 395 and was threatening properties in Nevada’s Washoe county. “Take immediate steps to protect large animals and livestock,” the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District tweeted. The blaze, which was only 8% contained, increased dramatically to 86sq miles (222 sq km) as firefighters sweltered in 100-degree temperatures. It was one of several threatening homes across western states that were expected to see triple-digit heat through the weekend as a high-pressure zone blankets the region.

Pushed by strong winds, a wildfire in southern Oregon doubled in size to 120sq miles Saturday as it raced through heavy timber in the Fremont-Winema National Forest near the Klamath county town of Sprague River.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

US Offer on Assange is New Evidence & Should Have Been Rejected

Home, but Not Free: NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Adjusts to Her Release From Prison

Basque country hails ‘forgotten’ retelling of Picasso’s Guernica

As Afghanistan Pullout Nears, US Emphasizes Plans to Keep War Going

Why is OPCW chief Fernando Arias afraid of his own inspectors?

Biden Wants Israel to Cease Palestinian Home Demolition

‘My story resonates’: India Walton details the life experience that put her on a mayoral path

Sunday Funny Pages: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Frontline Investigates the Federal Reserve: Is It a Captured Regulator that’s Wrecking the U.S. Economy with Asset Bubbles?

Before He Was UVA Police Chief, Timothy Longo Helmed DNA Dragnet That Targeted Black Men

How big oil keeps a grip on New Mexico – with the help of a major lobbyist

In California’s interior, there’s no escape from the desperate heat: ‘Why are we even here?’

Democracy Now: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez: Progressives May Sink Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Without Reconciliation Deal

Krystal and Saagar: Capitol Police Acquire WARTIME SURVEILLANCE MACHINES

Krystal and Saagar: Joe Biden Claims He's Taking On BIG BUSINESS, But There's A Big Catch

Jimmy Dore: White House Caught Covering For Hunter Biden's Latest Scam!

A Little Night Music

The Cadillacs - Speedo

Speedo and the Cadillacs - Everybody Else

The Cadillacs - No Chance

The Cadillacs - Speedo Is Back

The Cadillacs - Woe Is Me

The Cadillacs - Down the road

The Cadillacs - My Girl Friend

Speedo and the Cadillacs - Mr. Lucky

The Cadillacs - Zoom